Film / Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

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"All my life I have been acutely aware of a contradiction in the very nature of my existence. For forty-five years I struggled to resolve this dilemma by writing plays and novels. The more I wrote, the more I realized mere words were not enough. So I found another form of expression."

— Yukio Mishima

Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters is a 1985 film directed by Paul Schrader (writer of Taxi Driver) and co-produced by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. It is a complexly structured biography of Japan's most famous modern writer, Yukio Mishima (portrayed by Ken Ogata,) and consists of four chapters (Beauty, Art, Action, Harmony of Pen and Sword) which are made up of three stylistically distinct threads woven together throughout each:

The last day of Mishima's life. From waking up for the last time to taking a small group of cadets from his private army to the headquarters of the Japanese military and finally attempting a coup which fails miserably and ends in his suicide via seppuku.The basic anchor for the movie.

Flashbacks of crucial moments from his life including his lonely childhood, literary success, brushes with homosexuality and his physical and patriotic reawakening. These parts are shot in black and white and feature a much more subdued and relateable Mishima.

The Mishima novels visited (except Confessions of a Mask, which is semi-biographical and blends in with the other flashback sequences) include:

Temple of the Golden Pavilion. The story of stuttering temple attendant Mizoguchi, his highly cynical club-footed friend Kashiwagi, the eponymous temple, and a case of Stendhal Syndrome/Schizophrenia induced arson.

Kyoko's House. While originally following four characters, the movie focuses on only one of them for brevity- Osamu. A narcissistic two-bit actor who gets into a sadomasochistic relationship with a female loan-shark after she harasses his mother's cafe. He ends up committing murder/suicide with said lover in accordance with his nihilism and perception of life as ultimate art. A sentiment strikingly mirrored by Mishima toward the end of his life.

Runaway Horses. A decade before WWII the young right-wing aligned Isao conspires to wrest control of the government from the capitalists and give it fully back to the Emperor. He raises a small contingent of youths, makes a speech about honor and duty, gets arrested, begs for torture only to get an educational pep-talk, escapes, kills a man and commits seppuku. Again, something eerily imitated by Mishima himself in real life.

Due to the movie being Japanese with subtitles (except for the English narration) and the demands it placed upon its viewers, the movie failed to turn into a commercial success, instead becoming a favorite of critics and winning the award for Best Artistic Contribution at the Cannes Film Festival. It is also notable for having a simply stunning score composed by Philip Glass, a significant part of the film's beauty.

This movie contains examples of:

Affably Evil: If you regard Mishima as an Anti-Villain or Villain Protagonist, then he's this. Even when he's getting his followers sign up to his society in their own blood, he cracks a joke, and when he's talking to the left-wing students and they're heckling him violently, he's still patient and good-humoured.

Anti-Villain: For most viewers (except right-wing loons), Mishima is this: there's nothing intrinsically wrong with being fiercely patriotic and dedicated to beauty, but most people wouldn't take it as far as forming a quasi-fascist militia group and trying to inspire the army to overthrow the democratically-elected government.

Bishōnen: Osamu, who is played by Japanese singer and all around pretty boy Kenji Sawada.

Fatal Flaw: Yukio Mishima was one of the most gifted writers of his time - and a raging right-wing loon who wanted to turn back time 400 years, didn't get why all other Japanese were so weary of nuclear weapons and idealized the emperor as a living god. Needles to say, it doesn't end well for him.

The '50s: Setting of "Kyoko's House." Osamu has few kind words for his fellow Beatniks.

Foe Yay: Kimitake had a crush on the boy he wrestles during recess, you wouldn't know it unless you read the book however.

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